Alex Sujong-Laughlin writes over at Defector about falling down the doomsday prepping rabbit hole, and she put something into perspective for me that resonated deeply. I’ve also been thinking about this subject since the Second Coming of Cheeto, and given all of the warning signs and terrible news, I took some initial steps. She talks about her husband, a college professor, beginning his Intro to Government class with a lesson on the Hobbes vs. Locke philosophies: basically a Walking Dead humans-are-the-real-enemies mindset vs. a Star Trek we’re-all-in-this-together mindset. I definitely tend to be the latter rather than the former, but I also want to prepare for the Hobbesian hordes if and when they show up at my door. This paragraph really stuck with me:

The way you view the world determines how you live in it. These two theories also underpin the central policy differences between the left and the right. What is responsible for the problems in our world, and how do we go about solving them? If you believe that people are mostly selfish and hungry for power and resources, for example, you will be less likely to advocate for social safety nets. I realized that my anxiety was leading me into an imaginary Hobbesian hellscape, and I was using my impending parenthood to justify it.

I’ve always, since my early days, been focused on being as self-sufficient as possible: knowing how to frame and roof a house, plant and harvest basic crops, keep machinery working, handle weapons, and do basic repairs on most tools has been important to me not only because I’m cheap (and usually on a budget) as well as curious. This, plus my ADHD, has made me into more of a generalist vs. a specialist—something that bothers me less and less the older I get. There’s something to be said for stockpiling food for a Bad Situation, but much like she says in this article,

The amount of preparation I would have to do to maintain a semblance of normalcy in that instance would require such absurd investments of time and money that it would force me to adopt “emergency preparedness” as a main personality trait and hobby.

I think this encapsulates something I’ve been knocking around in my head for a while; I could spend immense amounts of time and money to prepare for the great unknown, but that would require a complete lifestyle change, which we are not prepared or financed to do right now. I’ll stockpile essentials—bullets, booze, freeze-dried food and water—but if the balloon goes up, we’re packing it in a running vehicle and heading north to the hills.